The Trials and Tears of Open Mic Night

The readers lips moved with the sound of tears
as he spoke, frankly, about his loves and fears
Snuffles, he called him.
A cat.
I hate cats.

His eyes pooled over (but still, his speech was poor)
and the words didn’t make much sense but
Snuffles.
Dearest departed.

In a flash of shared reverence
I saw him sitting in an armchair, the poet, not the cat
The cat’s dead.
And he felt that he, with such sorrow, should
WRITE

Because that’s how those people feel – the people with feelings.
Yeah. They feel.
And the sight of so much sorrow in an armchair (in my head)
is lost to how hard he worked,
How much he cared,
How much he tried.